As independents, we're struggling for our voices to be heard, and we're being silenced." -Joshua Cassity

Anybody who cares probably saw that the Pew Charitable Trusts released a study that found significant problems with the American election system and especially in Alabama. Our state, as it does in so many such studies, ranked in the bottom five states in the nation in terms of problems with the election system, as reported by AL.com's Charles J. Dean.

The study looked at the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, and later this year will add 2012 once all the data is in.

But of all the problems with Alabama's election system, the worst is ballot access. It's almost impossible for third party and independent candidates to get on Alabama's ballot. Without a doubt, ballot access, photo voter identification and the problems identified in the Pew study (wait time at the polls, lost votes and problems with absentee ballots, among others) help suppress voter turnout.

And, generally, that's just fine with Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature, who like the idea that it's their show only on election days.

That's hardly the American way.

While Alabama was in the bottom five in the Pew study, Joshua Cassity, chairman of the Constitution Party and a longtime advocate for a more open ballot, says the state is in the bottom three of all states for its tight ballot access rules.

"As independents, we're struggling for our voices to be heard, and we're being silenced," Cassity says. Cassity is one of the founders of Alabama Ballot Legislation Equality, a group working to open Alabama's ballot.

Under the rules, set up in the 1990s to cut off competition, an independent or third party candidate must get the valid signatures of 3 percent of the qualified voters in the most recent statewide election to get on the ballot.

Cassity says that means a candidate must collect more than 45,000 good signatures, which translates into tens of thousands of more signatures than that because the people signing must be qualified voters. Cassity says that process is expensive, costing about $2 a signature if paid petitioners are used and taking months, if even possible.

It is very difficult to get those signatures, Cassity says. And the fact that we so rarely have an independent or third-party candidate even in local races, much less state wide, underscores that fact.

Cassity and ABLE do have a champion in the Legislature. Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, has worked for years, first as a member of the House and now, for the past few years, as a senator to change the ballot-access rules. Last year, his bill made it through the Senate, passed a House committee, then died on the last day of the session.

State GOP Party Chairman Bill Armistead was one of the most vocal opponents to Ward's bill last year. He probably will oppose it again. Democracy does not suit Armistead. But before Republicans had a super-majority in the Legislature, Democrats kept killing the bill. This is a truly bipartisan conspiracy to keep Alabama's ballot closed.

And that's just plain wrong. What it says to voters is that neither party believes its party's ideas can stand additional scrutiny. It says that the parties are afraid of voters who might not think just like them.

Ward said he will try again this year. Let's hope a bill gets introduced soon. It'll take an all-out effort to get a good bill that truly opens the ballot through the Legislature.

It's not like we already have too many candidates on our ballots or too many ideas to weigh in our elections. It's not like we even vote in great numbers.

More choices will encourage more voters but, more important, more fairness.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer
Prize-winner, is a community engagement specialist for al.com and The Birmingham News. Reach him at jkennedy@al.com.